Jayawardene: 'We lost the game when we had control of it'

When the rain went away and Gujarat Titans (GT) needed 15 to win off six balls, Mumbai Indians (MI) had a few options to throw the ball to. Deepak Chahar had bowled just two. Hardik Pandya had bowled just one. The spinners Karn Sharma and Will Jacks had bowled just three between them. It had to be a quick bowler, so it was between Chahar and Hardik, and MI chose Chahar. Chahar was "our main bowler" at that point, Mahela Jayawardene, the MI head coach, said later by way of explanation, but Katey Martin was sure that "you always want your skipper to step up" in such situations.

But MI seemed to have made that decision before the team walked out for that one over after the last rain delay, pushing the Tuesday game into Wednesday, that it would be Chahar. A four and a six were hit, a no-ball was bowled, and GT were home off the last ball in a seesawing contest.

"Deepak did that job for us when Booms [Jasprit Bumrah] was not there [for the first few games of the season]," Jayawardene said at the post-match press conference after MI's streak of wins ended at six. "He was good, our main bowler. It's easier for you to ask me that question and for me to say, 'yeah, maybe Hardik'. Had Hardik gone for three sixes, you might have asked me why you didn't bowl Deepak. I don't like to go to that."

"Throughout the game, we made some good decisions with the ball when we had to attack. Deepak's execution - a couple of balls he missed, they hit some good shots, we bowled a no-ball as well on top of that - and we still came down to the last ball.

"It was not the decision; it was the execution. That's where we lost the game. My thinking is we lost the game when we had control of it and that was disappointing."

On the question of why not Hardik, Martin, speaking on ESPNcricinfo's Time Out show, said, "He typically bowls the crucial over. And I understand that he went for a few earlier. But yeah, you always want your skipper to step up." Hardik's only over in the game had gone for 18 runs, with three wides and two no-balls.

Martin and her co-panellist Abhinav Mukund agreed that MI had taken their foot off the pedal in the middle overs of GT's chase.

"I felt they just let the game drift a little bit in that middle phase," Abhinav said. "Because they have a set plan - like how Gujarat Titans have a set plan with their top three - when it comes to their bowling, they like using Bumrah to the back end of the powerplay, then maybe one in the middle overs and then maybe one at the death, or maybe even two at the death.

"They were forced to change the plan because of Gujarat Titans. But if you see the number of runs that were leaked in between the Bumrah overs - so Bumrah went three and five, and then you had that sudden surge of 37 in three overs [six to eight]. And then another surge [28 runs in overs 13 and 14] before Bumrah did eventually come back on. So… I know, cheat code and all of that, but you've got to manage your other bowlers as well. They got lucky with Ashwani Kumar, 2 for 28 in four."

As it transpired, Bumrah and Trent Boult had to bowl out by the 17th over as MI went in search of wickets, leaving Chahar, a powerplay specialist normally, and Hardik as the main options for the last over after rain decided the chase to a 19-over affair. Ashwani played his part well, coming on as a concussion sub for Corbin Bosch and picking up two wickets and bowling economically.

At many levels, it was Bumrah or bust for MI in the phase leading up to the death overs, and he didn't disappoint. Over No. 15 was 1 for 6. Over No. 17 was 1 for 7. Shubman Gill and Shahrukh Khan gone. Bumrah did swing the game, and the DLS equation, MI's way there.

The Gill wicket was a beauty. And Shahrukh was probably just not up to the task.

"That's the thing with Bumrah, right, he has the extraordinary skill and capability to change his length based on the batter," Abhinav said. "And he went slightly full, he missed the yorker - which I think he's not too confident about even now, seven games after injury - and went for four. And then he decided, 'Let me go back to lengths, let me cramp them because that's what I did the first two overs of the spell to Shubman and Jos Buttler.' So he went there again. And that's the ball he nails time and again.

"It wasn't sensible from Shahrukh to keep going, but I have seen him do it multiple times to try and just boss the game. You don't boss the best in the world, right?"

Till he got out, Gill was playing an ODI-style innings, going at under a run a ball, but doing just what GT needed to stay ahead of the DLS par score in a game where batting was far from easy - it was swinging around more than halfway into the second innings.

"The unbelievable part is that you can look so good and elegant as Gill has throughout the whole IPL, and the ball deviated a lot and nipped back in quite a bit, and he was literally nowhere," Martin said of Bumrah knocking Gill over with one that nipped back in and zipped off the surface. "It was just all about his [Gill's] hands trying to get the bat on the ball, there was concrete in his feet.

"That's what Bumrah does; he can make the best batters in the world look silly by just the intelligence in where he bowls, the extra pace, and the fire - he's just got the fire in the belly for Mumbai to get the side across the line. And I think the back-up over from Trent Boult [the 16th, which took Sherfane Rutherford out] and then another wicket [Ashwani getting Rashid Khan]. Ashwani wasn't even meant to be playing this game, he'd come in at the halfway mark as a concussion sub, and to be able to pick up a couple of wickets, economical too, I think the way Mumbai Indians bowled just shows they are never out of the game."

They weren't. Till that last over. Poor decision? Poor execution? We'll never know what might have happened if Hardik, more used to bowling in the death overs, had bowled instead of Chahar.